Search

Flight to remember

By Ariel Evans

Bullhorn Report er

Waking up at three in the morning isn’t fun, but going to the airport to get on a plane alone is fun – well kind of. On April 11, I got to visit my aunt and her family in Texas. My immediate family and I had been to Texas to see them two years before, but I felt like I needed to talk to them more.

When walking through the airport with my mom, it was a little scary because people were looking at me; they were most likely wondering why I had only one suitcase when there were two people.

My favorite thing about the airport is walking through the gates and seeing all the places people are going.

When my mom and I got to the gate, we took a picture together because this was the first time I was going somewhere far away without my mom – or anyone, really. After we took the picture, it was around 5:40 p.m. All of my family and friends started to call and text me, wishing me a good trip. I felt special when they called me and told me I would be the first one seated on the plane – I was flying alone.

When the time came to say goodbye to my mother, I was kind of sad but happy to be doing something fun. My seat was in the back of the plane to the right and I was sitting in the aisle seat. When everyone else got onto the plane, I met the people I had to spend two or more hours with. The woman to the left of me asked if she could sit in the aisle seat, I said yes and moved. An hour into the flight, I was hungry so I tried my best to get the flight attendant, but later gave up when she never came over to my seat.

When I looked over to the right at the woman beside me, she was doing homework. I guess she was in college.

I looked over to the left. The older man that was sitting next to me was reading a magazine. I couldn’t really see what the article was about because of the small print. I didn’t want to keep looking over and make it look like I was trying to watch him or anything. After looking over a few more times, I finally saw that the article was going to scare me, mostly because he was reading an article about defusing bombs. At this point, I was sure I was going to die. The only thing I could think about was not saying goodbye to my cat, Marycake, or not getting to eat pizza for the last time. After I calmed down, I looked at the time, and we only had 30 minutes left. When I looked over at the wing through the window, all I could think about was how I didn’t get to take some good Instagram pictures.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the man moving and getting a heavy book out of his carry on. I thought hopefully, “Well, I guess he is done learning about bombs.” I looked over and this book was about 9/11.

I was done. I had texted my mom, “I’m going to die.” Of course the text didn’t go through because we were still in the air. When we landed, my mom texted me, and was extremely worried, so I had to reassure her everything was OK.

Let’s just say I was really scared to get on the flight back home, but I did get some good Instagram pictures this time.